An interesting reference is this:
High, W. M. (1990). Editing Changes to Monographic Cataloging Records in the
OCLC Database: An Analysis of the Practice in Five University Libraries. PhD
thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
It's in UMI (and Heavy Trussed).
Simon
On Aug 28, 2012, at 12:05 PM, Galen Charlton wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 08/27/2012 04:36 PM, Karen Coyle wrote:
>> I also assumed that Ed wasn't suggesting that we literally use github as
>> our platform, but I do want to remind folks how far we are from having
>> "people friendly" versioning software -- at least, none that I have seen
>> has felt "intuitive." The features of git are great, and people have
>> built interfaces to it, but as Galen's question brings forth, the very
>> *idea* of versioning doesn't exist in library data processing, even
>> though having central-system based versions of MARC records (with a
>> single time line) is at least conceptually simple.
>
> What's interesting, however, is that at least a couple parts of the concept
> of distributed version control, viewed broadly, have been used in traditional
> library cataloging.
>
> For example, RLIN had a concept of a "cluster" of MARC records for the same
> title, with each library having their own record in the cluster. I don't
> know if RLIN kept track of previous versions of a library's record in a
> cluster as it got edited, but it means that there was the concept of a
> "spatial" distribution of record versions if not a temporal one. I've never
> used RLIN myself, but I'd be curious to know if it provided any tools to
> readily compare records in the same cluster and if there were any mechanisms
> (formal or informal) for a library to grab improvements from another
> library's record and apply it to their own.
>
> As another example, the MARC cataloging source field has long been used,
> particularly in central utilities, to record institution-level attribution
> for changes to a MARC record. I think that's mostly been used by catalogers
> to help decide which version of a record to start from when copy cataloging,
> but I suppose it's possible that some catalogers were also looking at the
> list of modifying agencies ("library A touched this record and is
> particularly good at subject analysis, so I'll grab their 650s").
>
> Regards,
>
> Galen
> --
> Galen Charlton
> Director of Support and Implementation
> Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
> email: [email protected]
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